Trudy Gold
The Disraeli Family
Summary
The remarkable story of Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881), the first “ethnic” prime minister of Britain, and the forces and personalities that shaped him. This presentation will examine the lives of his parents and grandparents as they made their way in England’s green and pleasant land.
Trudy Gold
Trudy Gold was the CEO of the London Jewish Cultural Centre and a founding member of the British delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Throughout her career she taught modern Jewish history at schools, universities, and to adult groups and ran seminars on Holocaust education in the UK, Eastern Europe, and China. She also led Jewish educational tours all over the world. Trudy was the educational director of the student resources “Understanding the Holocaust” and “Holocaust Explained” and the author of The Timechart History of Jewish Civilization.
You’ve got to remember the term ‘race’ in the 19th century was not a dirty word. In the 19th century, Disraeli talked about himself as a Jew by race, most people referred to Jews as a race, but they talked about the British race too.
Not necessarily. Disraeli was probably the wittiest man in parliament. Gladstone was a dour Scot. They were such polar opposites. Gladstone found Disraeli offensive, and he also had a terrible temper, whereas Disraeli would mock everything and mock everything off. It’s complicated.
Because of English law, the emancipation in England was very slow. Jews, when they came back, never had to live in ghettos. They could go into trade, but they couldn’t sit in parliament because of the oath. They couldn’t become members of all sorts of things because of the English oath.